


Day 21: Spending the Evening in a Café ft. Harlivy

by Pippiuscattius



Series: Pippi's Holiday Shipping Challenge [21]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, The LEGO Batman Movie (2017)
Genre: 25 Day Holiday OTP Challenge, Café, Christmas, Christmas Cookies, Christmas Fluff, Cute Date, F/F, Fluff, Girls Kissing, He's just along for the wild ride, Hot Chocolate, Human Legos, It's from his POV, Kissing, Legos, Pheromones, There's an unnamed guy in this too, harlivy - Freeform, poor guy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 06:44:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13094610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pippiuscattius/pseuds/Pippiuscattius
Summary: An employee working the night shift at a café in Gotham City gets more than he bargained for when the infamous local troublemakers Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn stop in for a bite. The whole while, Ivy and Harley just want to have a cute date.(Part of my 25 Day Holiday OTP challenge. Will feature multiple ships from multiple fandoms. These will all be quickly-written, silly drabbles so please don't judge them too harshly. UwU)





	Day 21: Spending the Evening in a Café ft. Harlivy

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this story primarily with the Lego versions of these characters in mind, since those are the ones I'm most familiar with and I'm still trapped in Lego Hell™. That being said, they're essentially humanized, so you can probably just imagine them as other versions of Ivy and Harley if you so please.

There wasn’t any protocol for what a café employee should do in the event that two supervillains came waltzing into the establishment. That was unfortunate, because that is exactly what happened one brisk December night in Gotham.

The first one came in on giant roller-skates, which scuffed up the floor the employee had just finished cleaning. She had her hair up in these ridiculous red and black pigtails, and most alarming of all, her skin was a pure, pale white. She looked to be a little bit too excited about being in the café when she skated in, doing a twirl on her wheels when she saw the display case full of Christmas baked goods.

The woman who came in immediately after her was much calmer, and also very, very, _very_ pretty. At first sight, the employee was practically smitten, though he was unaware that was the general reaction she tended to elicit. Her clothing appeared to be made out of leaves, which was…interesting, and her curled hair was a vibrant, reddish ginger. She was all dolled up for the evening in red lipstick and green eyeliner, though her make-up was twisted in a slight grimace when she noticed her companion pressing her face against the dessert display.

“Please, Harley,” the leaf-clad woman gently placed a gloved hand on her friend’s shoulder. “We’re not here to make a scene, are we?”

“Sorry, Ivy,” Harley popped up, not sounding the least bit apologetic. “They just look so tasty! Can’t we get some?”

“Well, that is the purpose of coming to a café, is it not?” Chuckling, Ivy didn’t remove her hand from her friend’s shoulder, patiently guiding her towards a booth on the other side of the café. “I don’t see any employees, so if no one shows up, we’ll just take whatever we want, how’s that?”

Rolling into place on one side of the booth, Harley nodded her head in emphatic agreement, sending her pigtails flailing. Ivy slipped into the opposite seat and began drumming her fingers on the table, looking around and admiring the café’s humble Christmas decorations, which largely consisted of garlands and bows.

The single employee on staff for the night dared to peek back over the counter he’d been hiding behind. To say the least, he wasn’t sure what to make of this. When he transferred to this branch in Gotham City and volunteered to take the night shift, he’d been warned that there were many shady characters prowling the city’s streets. He’d heard stories of both the heroes and villains of Gotham, but he didn’t think he’d meet any of them face-to-face. It would be just his luck that this would happen on a slow night when no one else was liable to drop in.

What should he do? Should he call his boss? No, probably better to call the police first. Or…that Batman guy maybe. He was supposed to be the one who stopped villains around here, right?

“Oh, there’s someone!” Ivy called out, pointing a finger towards the employee’s hiding place. “Sir, could you serve us?”

Crap, he’d been spotted. There was no need to panic; not yet, anyways. Smiling nervously and rising to his feet, the employee took his time striding over to the booth, making sure to keep a safe distance from the table even when in speaking range. Villains in Gotham tended to have some kind of mental instability, right? So there was no telling if these women were going to snap and use some power or weapon if he said or did the wrong thing. He never had to deal with this back in Metropolis…

Clearing his throat, the employee’s eyes darted between Ivy’s patient, alluring smile and Harley’s expectant grin. Opting to follow protocol as best as he could, he politely asked in a shaky voice, “M-may I take your order?”

“Peppermint hot chocolate!” Harley chirped. “Oh! And one of those sugar cookies shaped like a snowman. And also, some chocolate Christmas pudding. And a glass of eggnog to wash it all down!”

This one had quite the appetite for sweets, evidently…as he mentally catalogued each item, triple-checking to ensure he wouldn’t get them wrong, he turned to the other patron. “And f-for you?”

Ivy hummed to herself as she thought it over. “I’ll just have a cup of cinnamon clove tea, and…” Glancing across the table at Harley, a smile pulled at the corner of her mouth. “I’ll try one of those snowman cookies as well.”

Though he was not sure what to respond with to end the encounter, the employee was saved the trouble.

“Excellent choice!” Harley congratulated.

Leaping at the opportunity and nodding his head in agreement, the employee returned to the counter as casually yet quickly as he could. Once he was back behind the relative safety of the register, he felt that he could breathe again. Sweat was trickling down his collar and he could barely believe he’d just taken two supervillains’ orders.

As he set about gathering and preparing the items for each of their orders, the employee kept an ear tuned to their table. So long as he inconspicuously eavesdropped, he’d know if either them were about to do something dangerous or evil and could phone the police immediately.

None of their dialogue seemed particularly nefarious to him. They mostly kept up casual conversation, Ivy talking about “her plants” and Harley bragging about “kicking butt” at a roller derby. For supervillains, their conversation topics sure were mundane.

The closest they got to talking about anything villain-related was reminiscing over a Christmas gathering for Gotham’s villains the night prior, although the way they talked about it sounded like an innocent Christmas party that just so happened to be attended by villains. Maybe if he just pretended they were normal customers, the night would pass without a hitch. Sure, he’d have to suspend his disbelief a fair amount for that perception to pass, but he could do it. Perhaps he could see them as just especially eccentric but otherwise everyday customers…

By the time he returned with their completed orders balanced on a platter, both Ivy and Harley were quietly laughing over some shared joke. Despite them being villains, the employee thought it was, oddly enough, cute. He could tell their relationship went back rather far.

Taking a deep breath and reminding himself to pretend they were just two more customers, he set the platter down on the table. “Here you are, ladies.”

Harley was making grabby hands at her plate of cookie and pudding before it was even on the table, her blue eyes wide with excitement behind her mask. The very second she was able, she snatched her cookie and began munching on it, spraying crumbs everywhere.

Across the table, Ivy was calmly chuckling to herself and sipping from her cup of tea. The more the employee looked at them, the less villainous they seemed…he must’ve had completely the wrong idea about them.

Calmed by that thought, he continued with the routine. “There’s no rush, but how would you both like to pay? I can do separate checks if you would like, and we have a credit card machine-”

“Oh, we won’t be paying,” Ivy casually dismissed, taking another drink of tea.

Dumbfounded, the employee stared at her. “Um…I’m sorry, ma’am?”

“You heard her,” Harley cheerily piped up, cookie crumbs falling from her mouth. “We don’t have any money! You’re gonna give us all this for free!”

Nervousness surging back up with a vengeance, the employee stuttered out, “I-I’m sorry, but I can’t- that’s against company policy, I can’t just let you-”

Calmly placing her steaming cup back on the table with a silencing “clink,” Ivy peered at the man through her thick eyelashes. “I said…we won’t be paying. You’re going to give us this for free.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. Even if his boss would chew him out about it in the morning, he was absolutely not going to put up a fight against two supervillains. Then again, he could always go back to the counter and discreetly call the police-

“You’re not going to call the police either,” Ivy instructed, having caught the employee’s eyes straying to the phone behind the counter. “You’re going to let us stay here and not tell anyone we were here after we leave.”

Even though he would have been willing to follow those directions on his own, something more was motivating him. Something under the surface was willing him to obey everything this Ivy woman was saying, and though that frightened one corner of his brain, another corner was drawn elsewhere. Her red lips were right there, and maybe, just maybe if she was willing, he could get a kiss as a token of her visit…

“Hey buddy, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Harley advised, taking a swig of hot chocolate.

Those words snapped the employee out of it. He hadn’t even realized that he’d been leaning forward ever-so-slightly, his eyes on Ivy’s luscious lips. Flushing and taking a step back, he looked away in shame.

“They don’t call her _Poison_ Ivy for nothing,” Harley continued. “One kiss and…” she made a gagging noise and stuck her tongue out, dragging her finger across her neck. “Plus, she’s my girlfriend, sooooo…if the kiss didn’t getcha, I would!” Lapping up a bit more of her hot chocolate, she added reassuringly, “Trust me, I know how tempting it can be, but just don’t. Not that I have to worry about it, since I’m immune.”

So these two weren’t just friends; they were romantic partners. That certainly explained why they’d kept reverting to tender tones throughout the conversations he’d overheard.

“Guess I used a few too many pheromones,” Ivy pondered, shrugging. “I wouldn’t have let him steal a kiss, don’t worry Harley,” she leaned across the table, watching her girlfriend with affectionate eyes. She briefly glanced at the employee, who was still standing by their table and dumbly staring. “If you could leave us to our date, it’d be much appreciated.”

Mouth opening and closing like a fish, the employee simply nodded and scurried back to his post. Whether it was a lingering effect of her pheromones or just his fear of what they were capable of, he didn’t make any moves towards the phone.

All he could do was remain at his post, his eyes occasionally drifting towards Harley and Ivy on their date. He caught them sharing a peck of a kiss across the table once, and Harley must have really been immune like she’d claimed as no adverse effects appeared to befall her. The pair stayed for about half an hour, downing every last item they’d ordered and playfully flirting back and forth. Although they frightened him, the employee could find appreciation in their obvious love for each other. If you were going to break the law, you may as well have someone to break the law with.

When they did finally leave, Harley rolling out of the booth on her skates and Ivy following her, they did so hand-in-hand. The pair of villains left in their wake an eerily quiet café, an unpaid bill, and the faintest scent of flowers.

The employee shook his head as he set to cleaning up their table. That was it. He was moving back to Metropolis.

_Thus ends the twenty-first day of Christmas._


End file.
